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Fishing Report
Where did my
redfish go?
Ever lose that fall school of redfish you’ve been
hammering for months? It’s February, you show up to take care of
business, and poof, they’re gone. Where did they go? Why would they
move? I think I can help with the “where” part; as to why, well,
just a few theories about that.
Our fall and winter redfish bunch up together in
large schools. Why they do this is just a fisherman’s educated
guess. Perhaps for protection from their main predator, the dolphin,
or as a post-spawn action, or maybe it keeps them a bit warmer
during the cold winter, when their metabolism has slowed. I really
don’t know, but the schools are much bigger and that’s a fact. This
is what makes winter hunting for reds so exciting: when you find
them, you really find them. Then two or three schools just seem to
vanish off a flat. For years I would just say, “Oh well, that was
fun while it lasted,” and move along to a different school. Then it
started to worry me and the hunt was on.
This is exactly what happened to me and my friend
Chuck down south on the Sapelo River a few weeks back. He’d been
working a big school of reds for a few months and they just
disappeared. My job was to figure out where they had gone. They just
move, they don’t leave the area.
After arriving at the original flat he’d been
working, we dropped the trolling motor and started to cruise. Just
as he said, no fish. So I pulled out my chart and noted three of the
closest shallows and flats nearby and said, “I bet they’re just this
close.”
 So
down goes the trolling motor, full speed ahead. We had a lot of
water to cover before the tide began to flood. About 20 minutes had
gone by when Chuck spotted a small tern diving across the river on
one of the shallows we’d marked. That was a good enough sign for me,
considering we hadn’t seen so much as a ripple on the water. We
crossed the river and slowed the trolling motor just a little,
hoping for a sign. HOLY COW! There they were ... we’d run right over
the top of them. There were so many fish, they were running into the
side of the boat, and it sounded like they were in the empty live
well. I’d done my job and found the lost fish, and just to top it
all off, I whacked three six-pounders with a spoon, which confirmed
it was the same school of fish. Those fish had crossed the river and
moved about 2,000 feet.
Why they do this is, again, just a theory. I think it
could be a number of things, like fishing pressure from dolphin and
anglers. Sometimes, a flat gets fished almost every day when the
weather permits, and that’s too much pressure on a fish that just
wants to hang out. They are a very lazy fish in the winter months.
Maybe it’s just a water temperature thing, where one or two degrees
is a big deal.
So next time you lose that school of reds, take time
to look at your chart and work your way out from the last known
location. I hope this helps, and enjoy the hunt. I’ll see ya in the
river.
Captain Stan Allen (alias Fred) owns and operates
Marshland Inshore Fishing Adventures, a local guide service out of
Chimney Creek Marina (The Crab Shack) on Tybee Island. He has been a
Tybee resident for over 25 years and serves the local community as a
volunteer for the Fire Department and Marine Rescue Squadron.
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